Bolivia: President Morales Undergoes Minor Surgery for 'Benign Tumor'

Bolivian President Evo Morales has undergone surgery to remove a "small tumor," which was found during a routine check-up, he said Wednesday in a Twitter post.

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Morales, 58, who has held office since 2006, posted a picture of himself being checked by medics in a hospital bed and declared that he was "very well, 100 percent" and would be discharged Thursday.

"Very grateful for your solidarity, your prayers, and your blessings," he wrote. "In a routine check-up, doctors found a small tumor which has been removed satisfactorily through an emergency but low-risk operation."

The president's office said Morales had been treated at a private clinic in the city of La Paz. Local media ADI said Morales gave no other details about where the tumor was found, or the surgery itself.

Bolivian Vice President, Alvaro Garcia Linera, said: "He informs us that yesterday in the afternoon, after a meeting that we had with CONALCAM (National Council for Change), he was having some routine medical exams that had already been planned - checking his health, each organ of the President. Those exams will continue today and possibly tomorrow. Now, everything is going very well and for these few days, the President has suspended his activities."

Morales, a former coca farmer, and the country's first indigenous president, previously underwent surgery in Cuba to remove a benign tumor from his throat and in Bolivia for football-related injuries to his knee.